Nomination & Selection Process
Nominations for the 2024-2025 OISE Teaching Awards are now open. Nominate an OISE teacher who inspires you by January 31, 2025!
Nomination Requirements
The nomination package for an OISE Teaching Award should include strong evidence of excellence in teaching and leadership in teaching, must highlight particular contributions of the nominee and reference specific examples, and must include letters of support attesting to the nominee’s teaching excellence and outstanding leadership in teaching.
The lead nominator is responsible for developing the nomination package, coordinating input from other contributors, and ensuring the support of at least three co-nominators for the nomination. The co-nominators may or may not submit letters of support.
Nomination Package
- Please keep the nomination package succinct (a maximum of 50 pages in total). All pages should be numbered consecutively.
- All materials integrated into the nomination package (i.e. nomination brief, nomination letter, evidence of excellence, nominee's statement of teaching philosophy, letters of support) should be integrated into one complete PDF electronic document submitted via email to oise.programs@utoronto.ca
- Do not include copies of entire articles/books/textbooks with the nomination; however, clips and excerpts of, or links to, these materials may be included in the nomination package.
Please download and use the latest Guidelines for Preparing an OISE Teaching Award Nomination Package for information and advice on how to structure/organize your nomination package. The Guidelines also include examples of excellence in teaching and educational leadership.
Nominee's Curriculum Vitae (CV)
- Please note that the nominee’s CV is not included in the page count and should be submitted as a separate attachment.
Nominee's Involvement
- You will need to involve the nominee in the process of preparing the nomination package. They will need to prepare the statement of teaching philosophy or the educational leadership statement (in case of the Award for Excellence in Educational Leadership), and should be consulted with regard to letters of support and other relevant supporting materials.
Selection Procedure
The Teaching Awards winners are determined by an adjudication process by a Selection Committee chaired by the Associate Dean, Programs. A new Selection Committee comprised of representatives of faculty from across OISE’s academic departments (incl. representatives of students & staff), is established each year to ensure broad representation and diverse perspectives.
Note: Members of the Awards Selection Committee cannot submit or endorse any nominations, nor can they be nominated for any of the teaching awards.
The selection is conducted according to peer-review principles [see: Lamont, Michèle (2009), How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment, Harvard University Press].
Committee members use a rubric on a scale of 1 to 5 for each major criteria of the award. If a high volume of nominations is received, it may be necessary to assign nominations to a lead assessor and one or more co-assessors for this initial evaluation. The scores obtained through the use of the rubric for the assessment of each criterion serve for the initial ranking of nomination packages, and to inform the discussion among the committee members. The final decision is made holistically through collective deliberation with the objective to reaching a consensus.
The deliberations of the selection committee are confidential. Only the final decision is recorded. Written notes taken during deliberations are destroyed. Decisions are communicated to all nominees, but no feedback (other than procedural feedback) is provided.
By definition, it is expected that all nominations are indicative of an exceptional level of excellence.
Inquiries regarding OISE’s Teaching Excellence Awards and nomination procedures should be directed to oise.programs@utoronto.ca.
Teaching Awards Selection Committee Composition
A new committee will be established each calendar year to ensure broad representation. Members of the Awards Selection Committee cannot submit or endorse any nominations, nor can they be nominated for any of the teaching awards.
The Teaching Awards Selection Committee Composition is as follows: